Dirty Dozen The retreads and rejects representing the U.S. in Athens may not be a Dream Team, but they do have a dream

An American tourist in Rome was walking away from the Colosseumlast Friday when he ran into the defending world champion USAbasketball team. He was about to ask one of the players for anautograph when curiosity overtook him. "I'm sorry," the touristsaid nervously. "I know I should know you. But I don't."

"No, no, it's O.K.," the player said, and this is how heintroduced himself and his teammates: "We're not NBA." Thetourist still didn't understand.

"We're outsiders," the player said, trying to explain himself alittle better. After all, you can't just meet a stranger outsidethe Roman Colosseum and say, "Hi, I'm Jason Sasser. I'm a24-year-old unemployed small forward from Dallas. Grant Hill,Gary Payton and Tim Duncan were supposed to be on the DreamTeam, but they didn't feel like playing, so my country asked abunch of nobodies like me to play instead."

On Sunday in Rome, Sasser, whose NBA experience consists of 69minutes spread over eight games, boarded a private jet with histeammates for a flight to Athens. There a chartered bus waswaiting with a police escort to take the U.S. team to an elegantresort hotel. On Wednesday, when the world championship wouldopen, he'd put on an oversized warmup top featuring white starsin a field of blue with red trim. This might take some gettingused to, but Sasser is the starting small forward for theU.S.--not for the Dream Team, not for the NBA millionaires'team, but for the American team. The American team. Our team.

If Sasser and his teammates happen to win the worldchampionship--as they very well might--you may decide that theywere an improvement over the NBA stars. When was the last timethe U.S. put together a Dream Team that wasn't hyping a sneakercompany? A team that didn't act like it was doing you a favor byplaying hard? A team of real dreamers.

The trouble began hundreds of millions of dollars ago when NBAowners started complaining that the best players in the worldwere making too much money. The players responded that theowners had plenty more to go around, and, anticipating the July1 lockout, wondered publicly whether 12 NBA stars ought torepresent the U.S.--and help promote the league--in the 1998FIBA World Championship, the 16-nation tournament that isbasketball's World Cup. The attorneys on one end of thespeakerphone and the agents on the other kept daring each otherto make a move. USA Basketball, the sport's American federation,was caught in the middle, without a team. On June 16 thefederation said it couldn't wait for an answer any longer fromthe NBA players. In effect, the Dream Team was put on waivers.

The federation, however, had no intention of withdrawing fromthe world championship. Jim Tooley, an assistant executivedirector for USA Basketball, instead put together a new list ofcandidates that included 1,500 Americans who play in the CBA andin professional leagues abroad. After calling a few folks at thetop of his list, Tooley realized that any big-name player who'dever had anything to do with the NBA wasn't going toparticipate. Former stars like Dominique Wilkins and ByronScott, for example, who played in Europe last year, apparentlydidn't want to be seen as scabs, so Tooley had to cross morethan 300 names off his list. "I believe some agents dissuadedplayers," Tooley says. "One agent as much as told me, 'You guyskicked [the NBA players] off the team, and now you're gettingwhat you deserve.'"

That left Tooley with CBA players, amateurs and players who hadgone to Europe and were quickly forgotten back home. "We got thelist down to 200 guys we were interested in," he says. "Then Ijust started making phone calls. I called more than 150 guys."

From that group Tooley chose 30 invitees--including threecollegians--and all but two of them arrived on July 8 in Chicagofor tryouts, just three weeks before the U.S. would begindefense of the gold medal won by Dream Team II in 1994. Thatteam, remembered for the trash talking of Derrick Coleman andLarry Johnson, had been recruited after months of negotiating,pampering and flattering. The players who came to Chicago,however, had been neither coaxed nor seduced nor promisedanything more than a plane ticket and a chance.

One of them was 24-year-old Jimmy King. A shooting guard who wasone of the most heavily recruited players in the country sevenyears ago, he had gone to Michigan as part of the Fab Five. Twovisits to the Final Four were followed by a year spent mostly onthe Toronto Raptors' bench. King was then traded to the DallasMavericks, who waived him before the 1996-97 season. "That wasthe first time I had ever been cut from anything," he says. Kingspent most of the past two years in the CBA, where he was MVPlast season.

This summer he was in the middle of a private circus tour of NBAtryouts--going from Portland to the predraft camp in Chicago, toMiami, Milwaukee, Phoenix and Charlotte--when his mother reachedhim by phone. "She said, 'There are going to be replacementplayers for the world championship team, and you're going to beone of them,'" says King. After calling to make sure he wasinvited to the tryout, King headed straight to Jamaica for sixdays with his girlfriend and his Bible. "I had a little roomright there on the beach," he says. "I went there to get my mindright, to get in tune mentally, physically and spiritually."

This tournament may not have been the last chance for King andthe other players to prove themselves NBA-worthy, but some ofthem looked at it that way. "When I found out I was invited, Ihad nine days to prepare, and I just killed myself," says DavidWood, a 33-year-old forward who has played for 13 clubs,including eight in the NBA, four in Europe and one in the CBA. Hepaid $35 an hour to a well-known San Antonio gym rat named MikeGibbs to help get him ready. "But it's hard to train for anopportunity like this," Wood says, "when the intensity is so highand your life is on the line on every play."

The coach of the team, Rudy Tomjanovich of the Houston Rockets,was a strange sight among these players--the equivalent ofGeneral Patton running a boot camp. Tomjanovich held four dailyworkouts, and each player took part in two of them every day. Onthe third day the players gathered in a hotel ballroom, wherethe chairman of the selection committee, NBA senior vicepresident Rod Thorn, revealed the names of the 16 players whohad survived the first round of cuts. "It was shocking to me,"Wood says. "I think some of our best individuals were cut.Usually guys who look the best and score the best make the team,but that wasn't the way it worked here. The emphasis was onstrong defense and unselfish play."

It was a day for the unknowns. "I had never heard of four of theguys," says center Brad Miller, who went undrafted this yearafter graduating from Purdue. "I had to look them up on theroster sheet."

After another 13 days, four more players were trimmed. King, Woodand Miller all made the team.

Each player was allowed to bring one guest on the worldchampionship trip--which included 11 days of training andexhibitions in Monaco and Rome--so King brought his mother. Foreight days they shared a luxury room overlooking theMediterranean at the Loews in Monaco, the same hotel whereMichael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley gambledthousands of dollars before the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. "Icame into the room to go to practice, and I couldn't find myshorts because she'd put them back in my bag in the closet,"King says. "I said, 'Ma, just leave everything where it is.' Sothen she started talking about how this is going to be my sideof the room and this is going to be your side. She wakes upearly, opens up the shades and the sun beams in. Man, I have anewfound respect for my father."

Wood invited his 65-year-old father, Omar, recently retired fromAmtrak after 44 years spent mostly driving the trains. GerardKing, a 6'9" forward from Nicholls State, roomed with his bestfriend, 5'4" Shawn Royal. Sasser's guest was 25-year-old B.J.Jones, a former point guard at Colorado and Wayland Baptist, whobrought a highlight video of himself just in case any Europeanclubs happened to be interested.

The players were suddenly being treated like basketballroyalty--flying in an NBA team jet, staying in the opulenthotels meant for the Dream Team--mainly because thosearrangements had already been made, bills had already been paidand deposits were nonrefundable. Other services and amenitieswere slashed--no extra security, no NBA promotional people, noTV coverage on NBC. (USA Basketball pulled the plug on thatafter the NBA players were dropped, but if the U.S. reaches thesecond round, ESPN2 will offer limited coverage.)

Particularly noticeable during the team's visits to Monte Carloand Rome was the absence of player agents, sneaker executivesand a yapping American press corps. The only U.S. sportswriterfollowing the team as it landed in Athens was the HoustonChronicle's Eddie Sefko, who was there only because Tomjanovichis his hometown's coach.

Tomjanovich wasn't surprised to hear that his players weren'thaunting the Monte Carlo casinos. "It's because they don't havethe money to do what the NBA guys did," he said. That's not sucha bad thing. The team's best shooter, 29-year-old Jimmy Oliver,and his wife, Joli, went to Monaco's outdoor ballet. "My wifewas a dance major at Kent State," says Oliver. "She has taughtme to get into three of the positions they hold in ballet, justto show me how strong you have to be to hold those positions. Wetry to go to the ballet four or five times a year."

The starting point guard, Michael Hawkins, who brought his wifeof seven weeks, Tanya, couldn't believe he was in Monte Carlo.During the tryouts he was certain he would be cut. "I just knewI was gone," Hawkins says. But rejection and perseverance arethe white and red blood cells coursing through this entire team.All 12 players have been told they aren't good enough. All 12kept trying anyway.

Hawkins, who played 29 games for the Boston Celtics in 1996-97but spent last season with former Greek champion Olympiakos,might be the team's most important player, in large part becauseof his experiences playing in front of Greek fans. Greece is theonly European country more passionate about basketball thanabout soccer. Before almost any important basketball game,police frisk fans for coins and cigarette lighters. During theangriest moments of a game, spectators tend to throw coins atplayers, referees and coaches. They use the lighters to heat thecoins. Successful experimentation over the years has taught themthat a hot coin will stick to skin. "[Olympiakos] fans wouldshine lasers in the eyes of the opposing team," says Hawkins."They would throw lighters, coins, soda containers, keys, nuts,bolts. Somebody threw one of those big firecrackers, and it hitthe referee in the back of the leg. The game had to be stopped15 or 20 minutes while they taped the referee up. The floor wasburned about the size of a pie."

If this team loses, no one will be surprised. After all, it's noDream Team. If this team wins, it will be because ofTomjanovich, and because of the squad's pressure defense, andbecause eight of the players have professional experience inEurope and understand the opponents and the referees. The U.S.can successfully defend its championship, but only if all 12players work together, depend on each other. There was a movie afew decades ago, also set in Europe, about a group of Americanswilling to risk everything to save themselves and their cause.In effect, Jimmy King has gone from the Fab Five to the DirtyDozen.